Rebecca Lucy Taylor – aka the pop star Self Esteem – recently woke up with two cold sores on her face. And that was just the start of it. “I felt very disturbed emotionally on Thursday,” she tells me, sipping a cup of tea. “I’m out of my depth and my comfort zone.” To blame? The unlikeliest theatrical collaboration of the year: Taylor is starring in a West End revival of David Hare’s 1975 play Teeth ’n’ Smiles.
He’s a septuagenarian statesman of British theatre, who once wrote a theatrical portrait of Neil Kinnock so savage that the former Labour leader called it “the most uncomfortable three hours of my life”. She’s been deemed the musical oracle for female millennials; her gigs feature defiant choreography and women barking like dogs, and her official merch store sells a scarf emblazoned with the word “HELP!!!!!!!!!!!”. An unexpected pairing, you might say.
